Bicycle-lessons for adults.

It should be required for anyone with an age above 30 to do a cycling-exam every ten years.

You probably wonder why I suggest such a thing, why I’m so bittered. Well let me tell you.

Are you known with the notorious Dutch traffic? Have you ever been on a bicycle? For the foreign people I’ll explain how the normal streetview looks like in The Netherlands: There are over 30 million bicycles here and we only have 16 million people living in our country. Doesn’t that say enough? Dutch children already learn how to cycle when they are like 5-6 years old.

Can you imagine how our traffic looks like with this many people on the road? People should really know what they should and definitely know what they should not do in traffic.
For example stopping on the left side of a traffic light when you know you really aren’t the fastest cyclist out there. Why would someone do that? Get out of my way!  

Or cycling together with a friend -side to side- and cycling extremely, and with extremely I mean really extreme, slowly. Start walking if you use this kind of speed! 

And the worst nightmare for every road user are the elderly in traffic. They cycle with a maximum speed of 10 kph (6.2 MPH). I’m not exaggerating. And the worst thing in history is when you are trying to pass them. You ring your bell (which many cyclists don’t even have… I’m just saying), but they never respond to it. They just can’t hear it. The first thing that comes in my mind is: Why the **** are you in traffic when you’re deaf, for God's sake?!

In short there are enough frustrations when you get absorbed in Dutch cycling-traffic. So be warned!

J&R.